A new study by Josh Barro and Stuart Buck, co-sponsored by the Foundation for Educational Choice and the Manhattan Institute, finds that states have total teacher pension liabilities of ONE TRILLION DOLLARS!

These days that doesn’t sound like much, does it? We’re getting to the point where raising an alarm about ONE TRILLION DOLLARS is a little like holding the world to ransom for a measly million.

But check out some other points from the study:

These teacher pension liabilities are systematically concealed from the public. The states claim they’re on the hook for “only” $332 billion.

Not surprisingly, these concealed liabilities aren’t properly funded. Every pension fund is in shortfall – California alone by $100 billion.

The funding shortfalls aren’t trivial. The five worst states (by percentage) are less than 40 percent funded. Only five plans in the whole country are 75 percent funded.

The logic is simple: extravegant teacher pension promises cost nothing to make, and the people who make the promises will mostly have moved on to other things by the time the gigantic costs come due. The due date can be held off by dishonest accounting – you don’t need to put a trillion dollars into the pension fund if you just pretend you don’t owe a trillion dollars. When the chickens come home to roost, those in power can shrug their shoulders and blame the irresponsibility of previous administrations. And where will the guilty parties be by then?

At a time when nearly 10% of American workers are unemployed, taxes are rising, families are tightening their belts, and the federal government has showered more than $100 billion in stimulus money on K-12 schools to avoid cuts, we are seeing a slew of newspaper articles about “double dipping” in education. Double dipping is the practice of “retiring” from an education job and then, because of loopholes in teacher pension plans, returning to work with full pay and full pension benefits. By doing so they can increase the money they take home by about 60% for doing the same job (it varies across state plans and individual circumstances). It’s a nice deal if you can get it.

A quick Google News search for double dipping teacher retirement yields the following 15 articles from 7 different states in the last month alone. Maybe after seeing their ranks decimated by layoffs and pay-cuts reporters aren’t as eager to promote the false grievance of the starving teacher.